Public Reports
Public Report – Confidential Mode for Hyperdisk – DEK Protection Analysis
During the spring of 2024, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct a design review of Confidential Mode for Hyperdisk (CHD) architecture in order to analyze how the Data Encryption Key (DEK) that encrypts data-at-rest is protected. The project was 10 person days and the goal is to validate that the…
Public Report – Google Privacy Sandbox Aggregation Service and Coordinator
During the winter of 2022, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct an in-depth security review of the Aggregation Service, part of Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative. Google describes the Aggregation Service as follows: The Privacy Sandbox initiative aims to create technologies that both protect people’s privacy online and give companies and…
Public Report – AWS Nitro System API & Security Claims Italian
In the last calendar quarter of 2022, Amazon Web Services (AWS) engaged NCC Group to conduct an architecture review of the AWS Nitro System design, with focus on specific claims AWS made for the security of the Nitro System APIs. The Public Report in Italian this review may be downloaded…
Public Report – AWS Nitro System API & Security Claims French
In the last calendar quarter of 2022, Amazon Web Services (AWS) engaged NCC Group to conduct an architecture review of the AWS Nitro System design, with focus on specific claims AWS made for the security of the Nitro System APIs. The Public Report in French this review may be downloaded…
Public Report – AWS Nitro System API & Security Claims Spanish
In the last calendar quarter of 2022, Amazon Web Services (AWS) engaged NCC Group to conduct an architecture review of the AWS Nitro System design, with focus on specific claims AWS made for the security of the Nitro System APIs. The Public Report in Spanish for this review may be…
Public Report – AWS Nitro System API & Security Claims German
In the last calendar quarter of 2022, Amazon Web Services (AWS) engaged NCC Group to conduct an architecture review of the AWS Nitro System design, with focus on specific claims AWS made for the security of the Nitro System APIs. The Public Report in German for this review may be…
Public Report: Aleo snarkOS Implementation and Consensus Mechanism Review
In November 2023, Aleo engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to perform a review of the consensus mechanism implemented by snarkOS: “a decentralized operating system for zero-knowledge applications [that] forms the backbone of Aleo network, which verifies transactions and stores the encrypted state applications in a publicly verifiable manner.” The…
Public Report – Security Review of RSA Blind Signatures with Public Metadata
During the Autumn of 2023, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the white paper entitled “RSA Blind Signatures with Public Metadata”, along with the corresponding IETF draft for “Partially Blind RSA Signatures”. The work is inspired by the growing importance of anonymous tokens for the privacy…
Public Report – Aleo snarkVM Implementation Review
During late summer 2023, Aleo Systems Inc. engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to conduct an implementation review of several components of snarkVM, a virtual machine for zero-knowledge proofs. The snarkVM platform allows users to write and execute smart contracts in an efficient, yet privacy-preserving manner by leveraging zero-knowledge succinct…
Public Report – WhatsApp Auditable Key Directory (AKD) Implementation Review
In August 2023, Meta engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services practice to perform an implementation review of their Auditable Key Directory (AKD) library, which provides an append-only directory of public keys mapped to user accounts and a framework for efficient cryptographic validation of this directory by an auditor. The library is…
Public Report – Zcash FROST Security Assessment
In Summer 2023, the Zcash Foundation engaged NCC Group to conduct a securityassessment of the Foundation’s FROST threshold signature implementation, based on thepaper FROST: Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold Signatures. This projectimplements v12 of the draft FROST specification in Rust, with a variety of options availablefor underlying elliptic curve groups. The…
Public Report – Caliptra Security Assessment
During August and September of 2023, Microsoft engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of Caliptra v0.9. Caliptra is an open-source silicon IP block for datacenter-focused server-class ASICs. It serves as the internal root-of-trust for both measurement and identity of a system-on-chip. The main use cases for Caliptra are…
Public Report – Entropy/Rust Cryptography Review
During the summer of 2023, Entropy Cryptography Inc engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to perform a cryptography and implementation review of several Rust-based libraries implementing constant-time big integer arithmetic, prime generation, and secp256k1 (k256) elliptic curve functionality. Two consultants performed the review within 40 person-days of effort, which included…
Public Report – Penumbra Labs R1CS Implementation Review
In July 2023 Penumbra Labs engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to perform an implementation review of their Rank-1 Constraint System (R1CS) code and the associated zero-knowledge proofs within the Penumbra system. These proofs are built upon decaf377 and poseidon377, which have been previously audited by NCC Group, with a…
Public Report – Zcash Zebra Security Assessment
In Spring 2023, the Zcash Foundation engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the Zebrad application. Zebrad is a network client that participates in the Zcash consensus mechanism by validating blocks, maintaining the blockchain state (best chain and viable non-finalized chains), and gossiping blocks, transactions, and peer addresses.…
Public Report – AWS Nitro System API & Security Claims
In the last calendar quarter of 2022, Amazon Web Services (AWS) engaged NCC Group to conduct an architecture review of the AWS Nitro System design, with focus on specific claims AWS made for the security of the Nitro System APIs. The public report for this review may be downloaded below:
Public Report – Kubernetes 1.24 Security Audit
NCC Group was selected to perform a security evaluation of Kubernetes 1.24.0 release in response to Kubernetes SIG Security’s Third-Party Security Audit Request for Proposals. The testing portion of the audit took place in May and June 2022. The global project team performed a security architectural design review that resulted…
Public Report – Solana Program Library ZK-Token Security Assessment
In August 2022, Solana Foundation engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the ZK-Token SDK, a collection of open-source functions and types that implement the core cryptographic functionalities of the Solana Program Library (SPL) Confidential Token extension. These functionalities are homomorphic encryption and associated proofs used to demonstrate…
Public Report – VPN by Google One Security Assessment
During the summer of 2022, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of VPN by Google One. VPN by Google One is a service that increases connection security and privacy to end users. Google provides several clients covering the most widely used operating systems; these VPN clients provide…
Public Report – Confidential Space Security Review
During the summer of 2022, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the Confidential Space product. The system provides a confidential computing environment that allows cloud customers to run workloads in the cloud that can be attested to run a specific payload with high assurances that the…
Public Report – IOV Labs powHSM Security Assessment
In June 2022, IOV Labs engaged NCC Group to perform a review of powHSM. Per the project documentation: “Its main role is to safekeep and prevent the unauthorized usage of each of the powPeg’s members’ private keys. powHSM is implemented as a pair of applications for the Ledger Nano S, namely…
Public Report – Penumbra Labs Decaf377 Implementation and Poseidon Parameter Selection Review
During the summer of 2022, Penumbra Labs, Inc. engaged NCC Group to conduct a cryptographic security assessment of two items: (i) the specification and two implementations of the decaf377 group, and (ii) a methodology and implementation of parameter generation for the Poseidon hash function. Decaf377 is a prime-order group obtained…
Public Report – Threshold ECDSA Cryptography Review
In March 2022, DFINITY engaged NCC Group to conduct a security and cryptography review of a threshold ECDSA implementation, which follows a novel approach described in the reference paper entitled “Design and analysis of a distributed ECDSA signing service” and available on the IACR ePrint archive at https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/506. The threshold ECDSA…
Public Report – Lantern and Replica Security Assessment
From September 28th through October 23rd, 2020, Lantern – in partnership with the Open Technology Fund – engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the Lantern client. Lantern provides a proxy in order to circumvent internet censorship. This assessment was open ended and time-boxed, providing a best-effort security…
Public Report – go-cose Security Assessment
In April and May 2022, NCC Group Cryptography Services engaged in a security and cryptography assessment reviewing Microsoft’s contributions to the go-cose library, a Go library implementing signing and verification for CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE), as specified in RFC 8152. This library focuses on a minimal feature set to enable…
Public Report – Google Enterprise API Security Assessment
During the autumn of 2021, Google engaged NCC Group to perform a review of the Android 12 Enterprise API to evaluate its compliance with the Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) matrix provided by Google. This assessment was also performed with reference to the Common Criteria Protection Profile for Mobile Device…
Public Report – O(1) Labs Mina Client SDK, Signature Library and Base Components Cryptography and Implementation Review
During October 2021, O(1) Labs engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to conduct a cryptography and implementation review of selected components within the main source code repository for the Mina project. Mina implements a cryptocurrency with a lightweight and constant-sized blockchain, where the code is primarily written in OCaml. The…
Public Report – WhatsApp opaque-ke Cryptographic Implementation Review
In June 2021, WhatsApp engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the ‘opaque-ke’ library, an open source Rust implementation of the OPAQUE password authenticated key exchange protocol. The protocol is designed to allow password-based authentication in such a way that a server does not actually learn the plaintext…
Public Report – Zendoo Proof Verifier Cryptography Review
During the summer of 2021, Horizen Labs engaged NCC Group to conduct a cryptography review of Zendoo protocol’s proof verifier. This system generates and verifies modified Marlin proofs with a polynomial commitment scheme based on the hardness of the discrete logarithm problem in prime-order groups. The system also provides optimized…
Public Report – Zcash NU5 Cryptography Review
In March 2021, Electric Coin Co. engaged NCC Group to perform a review of the upcoming network protocol upgrade NU5 to the Zcash protocol (codenamed “Orchard”). The review was to be performed over multiple phases: first, the specification document changes and the relevant ZIPs, then, in June 2021, the implementation…
Public Report – WhatsApp End-to-End Encrypted Backups Security Assessment
During the summer of 2021, WhatsApp engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to conduct an independent security assessment of its End-to-End Encrypted Backups project. End-to-End Encrypted Backups is an hardware security module (HSM) based key vault solution that aims to primarily support encrypted backup of WhatsApp user data. This assessment…
Public Report – Protocol Labs Groth16 Proof Aggregation: Cryptography and Implementation Review
During April 2021, Protocol Labs engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to conduct a cryptography and implementation review of the Groth16 proof aggregation functionality in the bellperson and two other related GitHub repositories. This code utilizes inner product arguments to efficiently aggregate existing Groth16 proofs while re-using existing powers of…
Public Report – Dell Secured Component Verification
During February 2021, Dell engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of their supply chain security functionality and related and supportive foundational security functionality on 14th and 15th generation Dell servers. Documentation and source code was provided as well as access to a running lab server via network access,…
Public Report – VPN by Google One: Technical Security & Privacy Assessment
During the fourth calendar quarter of 2020 and the first calendar quarter of 2021, NCC Group conducted an in-depth review of the VPN by Google One virtual private network system. The focus of the engagement was to assess the product’s technical security properties and review its associated privacy claims. The…
Public Report – BLST Cryptographic Implementation Review
In October 2020, Supranational, Protocol Labs and the Ethereum Foundation engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to conduct a cryptographic implementation review of the BLST library. This library implements support for the draft IETF specifications on Hashing to Elliptic Curves and BLS Signatures. The latter specification uses advanced cryptographic-pairing operations…
Public Report – Filecoin Bellman and BLS Signatures Cryptographic Review
In May 2020, Protocol Labs engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services team to conduct a cryptography review of multiple Filecoin code repositories. Filecoin is a decentralized storage and content distribution network developed by Protocol Labs. These repositories implement finite field and group arithmetic, cryptographic pairings, SHA2 via intrinsics, BLS signatures and…
Public Report – Electric Coin Company NU4 Cryptographic Specification and Implementation Review
In June 2020, the Electric Coin Company engaged NCC Group to conduct a security review of the six Zcash Improvement Proposals (ZIPs) that constitute the core of the upcoming Canopy (https://z.cash/upgrade/canopy/) upgrade (also called “NU4”) to the Zcash network. This upgrade coincides with the first Zcash halving and will initiate…
Immortalising 20 Years of Epic Research
In December 2019 we launched this new technical security research blog site. As part of its launch we had cause to revisit our old blog website and found a myriad of forgotten whitepapers and conference presentations spanning NCC Group’s history (formation in 1999). Deeply nested on our old blog site…
Public Report – Pixel 4/4XL and Pixel 4a ioXt Audit
NCC Group was contracted by Google to conduct a security assessment of the Pixel 4, Pixel 4XL, and Pixel 4a devices. This assessment was specifically focused on determining whether the devices comply with the ioXt Android Profile based on the ioXt Security Pledge. This assessment was performed between July 28 and…
Public Report – Qredo Apache Milagro MPC Cryptographic Assessment
During the spring of 2020, Qredo engaged NCC Group Cryptography Services to conduct a security assessment of the Apache Milagro MPC library. This library implements the primitives necessary to instantiate the multi-party ECDSA signature scheme provided in Gennaro and Goldfeder’s Fast Multiparty Threshold ECDSA with Fast Trustless Setup. This assessment…
Public Report – Coda Cryptographic Review
During the spring of 2020, O(1) Labs engaged NCC Group to conduct a cryptographic assessment of Coda Protocol. This cryptocurrency leverages state-of-the art cryptographic constructions to provide traditional cryptocurrency applications with a more lightweight blockchain. This assessment focused on the core cryptographic primitives as well as the overlaid protocol. The…
Public Report – RustCrypto AES/GCM and ChaCha20+Poly1305 Implementation Review
In December 2019, MobileCoin engaged NCC Group to conduct a review of the AES/GCM and ChaCha20+Poly1305 implementations provided by the RustCrypto/AEADs crates. The intended usage context of these crates includes SGX enclaves, making timing-related side channel attacks relevant to this assessment. Two consultants provided five person-days of effort. The Public…
Public Report – Electric Coin Company NU3 Specification and Blossom Implementation Audit
In October 2019, the Electric Coin Company engaged NCC Group to conduct a review of two Zcash improvement proposals (ZIP 213 and ZIP 221) and of the implementation of ZIP 208 within the Zcash node implementation. ZIP 213 proposes a change to consensus rules to allow coinbase transactions to target…
Zcash Overwinter Consensus and Sapling Cryptography Review
Executive Summary In the spring of 2018, The Zerocoin Electric Coin Company engaged NCC Group to perform a two-pronged review of recent changes to the Zcash cryptocurrency. The first prong focused on updates to the Overwinter consensus code, such as architectural changes facilitating future network upgrades, and new features, such as transaction expiry. The second prong…
Android Cloud Backup/Restore
In the summer of 2018, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the Android Cloud Backup/Restore feature, which premiered in Android Pie. This engagement focused on a threat model that included attacks by rogue Google employees (or other malicious insiders) with privileges up to and including root-in-production. The Android…
Public Report – Android Cloud Backup/Restore
In the summer of 2018, Google engaged NCC Group to conduct a security assessment of the Android Cloud Backup/Restore feature, which premiered in Android Pie. This engagement focused on a threat model that included attacks by rogue Google employees (or other malicious insiders) with privileges up to and including root-in-production. The Android…
Proxy Re-Encryption Protocol: IronCore Public Report
From February 26 to March 18, 2018, IronCore Labs engaged NCC Group’s Cryptographic Services Practice to perform a review of their proxy re-encryption protocol and implementation. IronCore’s Proxy re-encryption scheme allows delegation of decryption rights from one entity to another without sharing private keys. IronCore uses this to delegate access…
The Update Framework (TUF) Security Assessment
NCC Group consultants Mason Hemmel and Jeff Dileo recently completed a one-week audit of the Kolide TUF client. The audit took place between August 28, 2017 and September 1, 2017. TUF, an acronym for The Update Framework, is a set-and-forget library for securing software updates. It combines a preponderance of…
Public Report – Matrix Olm Cryptographic Review
In September 2016, Matrix, along with financial support from the Open Technology Fund, engaged NCC Group’s Cryptography Services Practice to perform a targeted review of their cryptographic library Olm. The review covered two major components of the Olm library: the double ratchet used for peer-to-peer communications, and Megolm, the group…
Zcash Cryptography and Code Review
In August 2016, Zcash engaged NCC Group to perform a targeted review of the Zcash cryptocurrency implementation. The review was performed in two parts, conducted simultaneously. The first part, performed by the Group’s Cryptography Services practice, focused on validating that Zcash’s implementation adhered to the Zcash Protocol Specification. An assessment…
osquery Application Security Assessment Public Report
In an audit commissioned by Facebook, NCC Group consultants Raphael Salas, Andrew Rahimi and Robert Seacord provided an audit of the osquery framework for operating system instrumentation. osquery represents operating system details and events as SQL tables that can be queried real-time in complex ways. The audit covered the osquery core and…
Ricochet Security Assessment Public Report
In an audit funded by the Open Technology Fund, NCC Group consultants Jesse Hertz and PatricioJara-Ettinger provided an audit of the privacy-centric, messaging system, Ricochet. Ricochet leverages Tor hidden/onion services to provide anonymous communications between its users. During the testing period, this audit focused on common C++ vulnerabilities that had a potential impact on the security and…